i Authors: Philip Martinsson & Emil Thillberg
Supervisor: Jonas Ewald Examiner: Manuela Nilsson
Department: Peace & Development Studies Level: Graduate
Course Code: 4FU42E
Semester: HT 19/20
ii
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
We would like to extend our sincerest gratitude to everyone that have made this research possible. Our first thanks go our incredible teachers that encourages independent thinking outside chartered areas. That has not only helped us develop and utilise our creativity, but also strongly influenced our guide to research. Secondly, a special thanks to Sida through the Minor Field Study programme, this research grant undoubtedly enhanced the quality of the study. To our families that supported us throughout the journey in many ways and was always there when things felt incomprehensible, we thank you for the generosity, understanding and caring.
Our greatest appreciation goes also to our dear friend Mr. Job for providing (yet again) endless support with transportation across Nairobi. Your devotion and kindness are unforgettable, and we wish your family all the best in their future endeavours. Thirdly, we would also like to extend our special gratitude to the NAC Team in Moqdishu for accommodating our stay.
Plenty of organisations and institutions have also been helpful with this research, special thanks to representatives from KDF/AMISOM, UNSOS, UNOCHA, EU Delegation in Somalia, Interpeace, LPI, Hiiraal Centre, Somali Peace Line, ASEP Somalia, Islamic Relief Centre, Somalia Stability Fund and the International Peace Support Centre. We would also like to thank our former colleagues at the NCIC. Indeed, our sincerest appreciation and gratefulness go to all the informants who kindly took their time, and bravely shared their experiences with us, that lies in the heart of this research.
Cover Photo: A combat engineering team serving with the AMISOM KDF, searches an
area next to a mosque for IEDs in the southern Somali port city of Kismaayo. AMISOM
Public Information, October 5, 2012.
iii ABSTRACT
Contemporary peace operations are deployed to increasingly complex, high-risk environments where localised armed groups, often those that can influence the trajectory of the conflict are not at the table, at the same time militaries are mandated to facilitate social, economic and political transformative processes in recovered areas. By the opening of the twenty-first century, the distinction between peacebuilding and military interventions converged both in policy and practice and increasing pressure are placed on the troop contributing countries to adapt to the dynamics of ‘multidimensional peace operations’. Drawing upon the intersection between the academic bodies of peacekeeping and counter-insurgency, this research argues that there is a growing amount of empirically grounded literature that seeks to critically assess missions’
peacebuilding capability, and more specifically its impact on local settings. Yet, most studies tend to be framed in relation to conflict abatement along reductionist approaches to development rather than analysing how and in what ways such missions aid in providing a stable polity, thus suggesting a need of further investigation about the phenomena. In contribution to the community of practice(s), this research draws upon the latest theoretical trend of peacebuilding, abiding to a system perspective of the 5 Capabilities Framework (5Cs). This, in order to attain an increased understanding of military actors’ involvement and ability to undertake early peacebuilding tasks, by studying the case of the Kenyan Defense Force (KDF) under the auspices of African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) in the Jubbaland region. Moreover, the research was operationalised through an on-ground collection of data in Kenya and Somalia, using unstructured and semi-structured interviews and draws upon a purposive sampling method to gather perspectives from a variety of actors involved in peace operation affairs. The study finds that the AMISOM KDF have played a key role in shaping the organisation’s peacebuilding policy, with a diverse portfolio engagement of both top-down and bottom-up character. Working predominantly through informal structures, much of their engagement is not aligned with the AMISOM civilian headquarters, in response to an environment with many challenges, resulting in a patchwork of practices with sectoral difference. Analytically, the 5Cs framework posit that an organisation must strike a balance between all capabilities in order to produce social value, something that the Kenyan contingents have struggled to achieve. While this unpacks a view of moderate, to low capacity for peacebuilding, it also generates an overall critique to the framework as it promotes a scenario which seems impossible to realise. Despite its ‘system-wide’ contribution, questions remain regarding the value of the framework in analysing local peacebuilding engagement in peace operations.
Keywords: AU-led Peace Operations, Peacekeeping, Counterinsurgency, Peacebuilding,
System-thinking, AMISOM, KDF, Somalia, Jubbaland
iv
TABLE OF CONTENT
LIST OF ABBREVATIONS
VI
LIST OF FIGURES
VIII
1. INTRODUCTION & RESEARCH PROBLEM 1
1.1 RELEVANCE
6
1.2 RESEARCH OBJECTIVE & QUESTIONS
7
1.3 THEORETICAL & METHODOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK
7
1.4 RESEARCH DISPOSITION
8
2. LITERATURE REVIEW 9
2.1 SYNOPSIS OF THE PEACEKEEPING & COUNTERINSURGENCY DEBATE
9
2.2 THE PEACEKEEPING COMMUNITY
10
2.3 THE COUNTERINSURGENCY COMMUNITY
14
2.4 SUMMARY & RESEARCH GAP
18
2.5 AMISOM / KDF
20
2.5.1 EMPIRICAL CONNECTION TO THE RESEARCH GAP
21
3. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 22
3.1 THE EPISTEMOLOGICAL FOUNDATION OF THE 5Cs FRAMEWORK
22
3.2 THE 5 CAPABILITIES FRAMEWORK
23
3.2.1 THE CAPABILITY TO COMMIT & ENGAGE
24
3.2.2 THE CAPABILITY TO RELATE, ATTRACT RESOURCES & SUPPORT
25
3.2.3 THE CAPABILITY TO ADAPT AND SELF-RENEW
26
3.2.4 THE CAPABILITY TO BALANCE DIVERSITY & COHERENCE
26
3.2.5 THE CAPABILITY TO CARRY OUT SERVICE DELIVERY
27
3.3 SHOULD CERTAIN CAPABILITY COMPONENTS BE PRIORITISED?
28
3.4 AVOIDING MISSION CREEP IN 5Cs ANALYSIS: INTRODUCING CONOPS
28
3.5 AMISOM CONOPS 2018-2021
29
3.5.1 OBJECTIVES
29
3.5.2 TASKS
30
3.6 VISUALITY & OPERATIONALISATION OF THE FRAMEWORK
31
4. METHODOLOGY 32
4.1 RESEARCH DESIGN
32
4.2 ABDUCTIVE REASONING
32
4.3 QUALITATIVE INTERVIEWS
33
v
4.4 INTERVIEWEES & SAMPLING
34
4.5 TRIANGULATION OF DATA
38
4.5.1 PRIMARY MATERIAL
38
4.5.2 SECONDARY MATERIAL
40
4.6 ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS
41
4.7 LIMITATIONS
42
4.8 DELIMITATIONS
43
5. FINDINGS 44
5.1 CONLICT BRIEF
44
5.2 AMISOM KDFs PEACEBUILDING ENGAGEMENT
48
5.2.1 SECURING POPULATION CENTRES, MSRs & MANAGING FOBs
48
5.2.2 MANAGING ARMED DEFECTORS
50
5.2.3 CAPACITY BUILDING OF THE SOMALI SECURITY FORCES
51
5.2.4 FACILITATION OF LOCAL ADMINISTRATION & SERVICE DELIVERY
53
5.2.5 CONSOLIDATING PROJECTS WITH LOCAL KEY LEADERS
59
6. ANALYSIS 62
6.1 THE CAPABILITY TO COMMIT & ENGAGE
62
6.2 THE CAPABILITY TO RELATE, ATTRACT RESOURCES & SUPPORT
63
6.3 THE CAPABILITY TO ADAPT & SELF-RENEW
66
6.4 THE CAPABILITY TO BALANCE DIVERSITY & COHERENCE
69
6.5 THE CAPABILITY TO CARRY OUT SERVICE DELIVERY
71
7. CONCLUSION 74
8. REFERENCES 78
9. ANNEX 96
9.1 INTERVIEW GUIDE
96
9.2 INTERVIEW REFERENCES
98
9.3 MAPS
99
vi LIST OF ABBREVATIONS
5Cs-5 Capabilities Framework A4P-Action for Peacekeeping
AMISOM-African Union Mission in Somalia
AMISOM KDF-African Union Mission in Somalia Kenyan Defence Force AOG-Armed Opposition Group
AOR-Area of Operation AU-African Union
AU-PSO-African Union Peace Support Operation BNDF-Burundi National Defence Force
CAS-Complex Adaptive Systems CIMIC-Civil-Military Coordination COIN-Counterinsurgency
CONOPS-Concept of Operations
DDR-Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration
DPKO/DFS-Department of Peacekeeping Operations/Department of Field Support FGS-Federal Government of Somalia
FMS-Federal Member States FOB-Forward Operating Base
G5 Sahel-Joint Force of the Group of Five of the Sahel IDP-Internally Displaced Person
IED-Improvised Explosive Device KDF-Kenya Defence Force
MIA-Moqdishu International Airport
MINUSMA-United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilisation Mission in Mali
vii
MNJTF-Multinational Joint Task Force in Lake Chad Region
MONUSCO-United Nations Stabilisation Mission in The Democratic Republic of Congo MSR-Main Supply Route
NGO-Non-Governmental Organisation PK-Peacekeeping
PSO-Peace Support Operation
SIDA-Swedish International Development and Cooperation Agency SNA-Somalia National Army
SSF-Somalia Security Forces SSR-Security Sector Reform STP-Somali Transition Plan
TCC-Troop Contributing Countries UN-United Nations
UNAMID-United Nations / African Union Hybrid Mission in Darfur UNAMSIL-United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone
UNDPKO-United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations UNGA-United Nations General Assembly
UNMIL-United Nations Mission in Liberia
UNMISS-United Nations Mission in South Sudan
UNOCHA-United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance UNOCI-United Nations Operation in Côte d’Ivoire
UNSC-United Nations Security Council VIED-Vehicle Improvised Explosive Device
viii LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1-Tasks UN PK Mandates (1948-2016)
Figure 2-The AMISOM CONOPS Figure 3-The 5Cs Framework
Figure 4-Streamlining the Framework
Figure 5-Violent interactions with Al-Shabaab 2010-2018
1 1. INTRODUCTION & RESEARCH PROBLEM
Almost three decades ago, during a US military assistance visit to Chad, the American contingent was attempting to convince the leadership of the Chadian Armed Forces that they should use some of the country’s military resources to improve Chad’s social, economic and political conditions by doing public works and civil affairs. The Chadian army, mainly trained as traditional, elitist soldiers, refused to even talk about such proposals and retorted that
“…obviously, warriors don’t do windows” (Lt.Col. Hasskamp, 1998:1).
While contemporary peace operations are no longer juxtaposed on “whether” militaries should engage, facilitate and support integrated development efforts to establish an
environment conducive to post-conflict political processes, this anecdotal story reflects the essence of a continuous debate concerning the appropriate role and capability of such actors in the undertaking of peacebuilding or the likewise services in war-torn countries. Scholars who stresses the essentiality of militaries in the promotion of reconstruction and societal rehabilitation for people affected by armed violence (Azimi & Chang, 2000; Fortna, 2004;
2008; Beardsley, 2013; Hultman Kathman & Shannon, 2014; Mironova & Whitt, 2017) are met by those who conceive their engagement as ineffective and in some cases even provoking conflict (Autesserre, 2014a; 2017; Crost, Felter. J. & Johnston, 2014; Keinscherf, 2016;
Child, 2018; Moe, 2018; Brosig & Sempija, 2018).
.
In UN peace operations, these generic observations have been undergirded by two major and interlinked transformations that serve as an important ontological departure to this research.
The first dynamic relates to the widening scope of mandated activities. Historically, missions deployed in the 1940s and 1950s were mainly composed of military personnel in charge of observing compliance amid ceasefires agreed between former warring states and thus having limited engagement (UNGA, 1956; Ramsbotham & Woodhouse, 1999). During the closure of the Cold War, the concept of peacekeeping evolved and shifted its modus operandi to
encompass larger missions with a mandate to implement peace accords between intra-state
actors (UNSC, 1978; Boutros-Ghali 1992: §58-59; Andersen & Engedal, 2013:18). Today’s
multidimensional peacekeeping operations are often mandated to conduct a wide range of
activities, such as facilitating political transformative processes, extending state-authority,
consolidating the rule of law, assisting in the delivery of humanitarian relief, reconstructing
infrastructure and brokering agreements between local fighters (UN/Brahimi Report, 2000
2
§14-19; Puechguirbal, 2010:161; Andersen & Engedal, 2013:19; Diehl and Druckman, 2018;
De Coning & Peters, 2019). The latter shift, which explains the comprehensive solutions taken in the face of profound global dynamics resulted in a blurred interplay between peacebuilding becoming an extension of peacekeeping practices (Azimi & Chang, 2000;
Hazen, 2007). In turn, operations increasingly impinge on the domestic realm of host-states based on the premise of assisting the re/establishment of democratic institutions, rule of law and economic reconstruction (Paris, 2004; Pugh, 2012; Chandler, 2015). In this, a liberal ideology could be combined with a package of transformational policies, often construed by academics as the liberal peace model (Andersen & Engedal, 2013:46). The theory of change of this approach assumed that societies that had not reached a certain level of development could be assisted through interventions by adopting norms and institutions of a liberal character (De Coning, 2018:302). Yet, in the light of a mixed track record and the limited ability of the UN’s top-down and externally imposed solutions, practitioners have become increasingly aware that successful peace operations need to be credible and legitimate in the eyes of the local population (HIPPO, 2015:14; UNSC, 2016a).
Unquestionably, peacekeeping forces have been critical in enabling the success of certain top- down processes (Beardsley, 2012; Fortna, 2008; Hultman, Kathman & Shannon, 2014), yet this finding may not apply to peacebuilding efforts at the local level due to specificities, values and attitudes of the host communities (Autesserre, 2014a:494). As Gelot notes,
“…peacekeepers do not simply deal with relations between states [anymore] but impact the lives of people on the ground in a direct manner, thereby affecting their chances to pursue the good life in whatever way they see fit” (2016:26). In all, this reasoning is one of many similar positions (Billerbeck, 2017; Whalan, 2017) and signals a concern with the dynamics of local peacekeeping and the ability to build upon everyday capacities and institutions through bottom-up agendas (Autesserre, 2014a; 2017). Put in blunt, a people-centred approach to peacekeeping follows historical patterns to pacification practices outlined by scholars such as Galtung (1976) and Curle (1993) stressing the conciliation of conflict on the ground.
The second dynamic relates to the regionalisation of peace operations. In this context, UN
peacekeeping operations have during the last decade been deployed to protect civilians in
increasingly volatile environments with no reliable peace agreement in place (Karlsrud,
2017). Adapting to these environments, have not only required an extended scope of activities
but also the combined use of force on an operational and strategic level under Chapter VII of
3
the UN charter to reinforce political interests (Pugh, 2012:412-13). However, amidst a recognition that the UN is not suited to undertake peace enforcement or counterinsurgency operations given its core practices of consent, impartiality and non-use of force (De Coning, 2017:146; Gelot, De Coning & Karlsrud, 2015:11), regional organisations, or coalitions of the
‘willing’ such as NATO, ECOWAS, and AU, have developed approaches to meet such demands (De Coning & Peters, 2019:3-4). Whereas the latter organisation has advocated this development as the legitimate claim for ‘African solutions to African problems’ (ISS Africa, 2008) while concurrently becoming an integral part of the global peace and security
architecture (De Coning, 2019:214). In addition, all AU-led peace operations to date have been deployed amidst ongoing hostile conflict (e.g. Sudan, Mali, Sahel and Somalia)
requiring a mandate that enables a fragile peace to be enforced by suppressing the capability of aggressors to use force for political purposes (Gelot, De Coning & Karlsrud, 2015:11).
Explicitly, with a lack of empirical evidence supporting the combination of warfighting and peacebuilding in UN peace operations, the similarity between the context and tasks required in that of counterinsurgency (COIN), allow the COIN field to problematise this dilemma further (Ellis, 2019) by acting as an extended yard-stick to this research. Thus, in a parallel debate, the COIN community have long and consistently been puzzled by the aspect of warfighting combined with localised development efforts (Zambernardi, 2010) akin ‘armed social work’ as Kilcullen (2006:32) puts it, ‘to solve local socio-political problems while being shot at’. Having some similarities to the peacekeeping field, the renaissance of contemporary COIN practices must be understood on the basis of adjustments that have followed from the limitations and setbacks of top-down ‘direct’ military interventions and the strong ties to the politics of liberal peace as the permanent solution to insurgencies (Bell, 2011:310; Ozdemir, 2019:194). As Kilcullen noted in the case of Afghanistan when reflecting on the need to configure bottom-up agendas in future missions:
“…The international community spent millions of dollars at the capital-city level in Kabul building a Supreme Court and training judges and rewriting the legal code to establish a rule-of-law system. The Taliban came in at the village level with Sharia and their mobile courts, and they established a rule-of-law system within months and gained control of the population while we were still busy turning around in Kabul” (2011:596).
4
Therefore, it became increasingly apparent that state-centric approaches (Petrik, 2010:3), often combined with a linear set of ‘clear, hold and build’ strategy (Ucko, 2013:526) did not meet the expected outcomes to the challenges of modern conflict. By drawing on the scholarly by Lawrence (1917) and Galula (1964), an orientation back to the local and ‘war amongst the people’ with the aim of gaining or maintaining support, and legitimacy of local populations have been critical for mission success. As noted by the US FM 3-24 (2013: xi),
counterinsurgents rely upon softer means to not only address root causes to conflict but also to tactically compress insurgents within competing political and socio-popular space. Thus, with the simultaneous use of ‘tailored’ force, Moe (2016:100) and Turner (2015:77) observes that the rise of population-centric COIN involves increasing (re)convergence between the politics of warfare and the advancement of military tactics through aligning with; and drawing upon;
the politics of ‘bottom-up’ approaches to peacebuilding. In all, this type of rationale has been reinforced by other contemporary thinkers as well, scrutinising military actors’ local
development efforts in the battle for ‘hearts and minds’ (Keen & Atree, 2015; Müller &
Hönke, 2016; Crost Felter. J. & Johnston, 2014; Khanna & Zimmerman, 2017) and how to approach culturally distinct and contradictory settings (Ridout, 2016; Kitzen, 2017;
Gawthorpe, 2017).
Thus, and in summary, scholars from both the peacekeeping and counterinsurgency
community have started to unpack such missions from the ground resulting in a diverse body of literature in terms of methodology, epistemology, and cases. What such scholars have in common, however, is the wider discursive shift in the commitment to theorise and analyse peace operations beyond the primacy of security and state-centred norms, in a turn towards the understanding of ‘local operations’, its impact, and ability to support, gain and shape peace locally. Yet, we posit that there is a need to accelerate our analytical understanding further about how, in what ways and under which circumstances military actors may be particularly helpful on the ground in providing the foundations for transitional politics, specifically peacebuilding. This is important because the liberal peace as a framework of analysis seems increasingly outdated and contested amidst a growing acknowledgement that such operations are non-linear, fluid, and complex (Neethling & Hudson, 2013:116, 127; Moe
& Müller, 2017:14). This we seek to build upon, by suggesting a system perspective which
opens the way for a comprehensive understanding of the nature and the boundaries to
development problems were then ‘social entities’ (or military actors) to stay fit, must adapt
themselves to complex situations and ever-changing circumstances (Keijzer et al, 2011:10).
5
Through this reasoning, we seek to apply the ‘5 Capabilities Framework’ (5Cs) which is a theoretical lens that not only informs our understanding of how actors, groups or
organisations can produce social value within complex systems, but also how the designated organisation manages to balance all 5 capabilities.
1African Union's Mission to Somalia (AMISOM), currently the largest mission of its kind (De Coning, 2017), comes as an interesting example with regards to the identified research gap as its mandate includes aspects of peacebuilding (AU/AMISOM, 2017) but are at the same time entangled in a modern war representing some of the worst contexts for transitional politics (Sperber, 2018; Brule, 2017). Moreover, we have chosen Kenya and the Kenyan Defence Forces (KDF) presence in Somalia, explicitly in sector 2, Jubbaland, under AMISOM (Williams, 2018a:127-128), as the target of this study. From an empirical point of view, we posit that significantly few studies have investigated individual Troop Contributing Countries (TCC) under the AMISOM mandate in the context of analysing if the actor is perceived as being able to support or conduct peacebuilding activities, as specified in its Concept of Operations (CONOPS). Explicitly, those that have investigated the AMISOM KDF tend to frame their actions as ‘counter-productive’ (Brosig, 2017; Williams, 2018b, Allison, n.d.) and fails to make a satisfactory problematisation of their peacebuilding engagement.
Furthermore, when combined with the 5Cs framework to understand the AMISOM KDFs contingent’s capacity to produce social value, this study presents itself in a nuanced corner. In line with the growing research debate, we argue that there is a pressing need to investigate how, in what ways, and under which circumstances ‘warriors’ actually ‘can do windows’. The next sub-chapter will shed practical light on why this line of inquiry is important to study.
1 See section 1.3 for an introduction to the 5Cs Framework.
6 1.1 RELEVANCE
The UN is under increasing pressure to justify the effectiveness of the operations they deploy, as noted by the High-Level Independent Panel on UN Peace Operations (HIPPO) (2015: vii).
The pressure of political accountability, which is highly relevant for AU-led operations as well (De Coning & Peters, 2019:216), comes amidst a recent UN Security Council (UNSC) draft resolution in the context of Somalia recognising that Al-Shabaab and other armed groups will not be defeated by military means alone (2018b:9). In fact, one of AMISOM’s most essential tasks, as proclaimed by the UNSC resolution 2297, is to engage with local communities through bolstering an understanding between itself and local populations in order to allow longer-term stabilisation by the UN country team (2016b: §7). As highlighted by the AU themselves during the 10-year review conference of AMISOM in Nairobi, there is a need at the operational level to provide ´peace dividends´ to the population in recovered areas as a part of the post-conflict reconstruction phase (AU, 2018:5-6). Something that has been equally implied by the U.S AFRICOM, one of the support operators to AMISOM (US CAS, 2019).
The above-mentioned high-level advocacy point to a situation where there is a need to better understand the capability of military actors in the undertaking of early peacebuilding
activities, their challenges and their operating environment. In addition, both the COIN and peacekeeping community have requested a closer academic (and policy) debate between their shared domains in community-centred approaches to peacebuilding (Kilcullen, 2010:160;
Krishnasamy, 2015:193)
With the deployment of over 10 AU-led peace operations over the last decade, such as in
Burundi, Comoros, Central African Republic, Nigeria, Somalia and Mali, an African model of
peace operations are beginning to emerge that will continue to revise, shape and modify
institutionalised practices for; and in cooperation with; the international peace and security
community (De Coning, Gelot, Karlsrud, 2016:7, 131; A4P, 2018). In this, ongoing policy
discussions by AMISOM and the AU on enhancing short-term peacebuilding activities and
community engagement provide an important and timely moment to constructively contribute
to the development of that policy, which can have implications well beyond Somalia, for all
AU-led peace operations.
7 1.2 RESEARCH OBJECTIVE & QUESTIONS
Hence, the objective with this research is to gain a deeper understanding of military actors’
capacity to engage as early peacebuilders within AU-led peace operations, using a system- based approach, by studying the case of the KDF, under the auspices of AMISOM.
To explore this objective, the study poses the following research questions:
1. How is the peacebuilding engagement conducted by the KDF, as identified by the AMISOM Concept of Operations?
2. Through the application of the 5 Capabilities Framework, what is the AMISOM KDFs overall capacity to engage in peacebuilding?
1.3 THEORETICAL & METHODOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK
As implied by its name, the 5 Capabilities (5Cs) framework centres around 5 capabilities
2, each with its various characteristics, that together contribute to an organisations capacity to create social value. The 5Cs framework emerges from system theory but argues that
performance within the system is based upon the capacity of the organisation. In its simplest terms, the framework sheds light on the ability of an organisation to survive and conduct its tasks in its operating environment. Moreover, the framework postulates that capacity should be understood as an endogenous, non-linear process that is influenced by internal and external factors ‘within a larger system’ or wider society (Keijzer, et al, 2011:10). The framework will narrow our line of study to explore the perception of interviewees, regarding the capacity of AMISOM KDF mandate to implement tasks of peacebuilding in the Jubbland region of Somalia.
In terms of methodology, the thesis is based on a qualitative approach with its various tools.
Thus, emerging from the topic of the study, the operationalisation of the research objective is built upon an ‘on-ground’ collection of data guided by abductive reasoning. Data gathering consisted of unstructured and semi-structured interviewing, whereas the findings are built upon a sample collection from a variety of actors involved in peacekeeping affairs, both civilian and military from different professional and ontological backgrounds. Where
2 (1) Commit and Engage, (2) Relate, Attract Resources and Support (3) Adapt and Self-Renew, (4) Balance Diversity and Coherence and (5) Service Delivery.
8
appropriate, findings are substantiated by secondary material.
1.4 RESEARCH DISPOSITION
Finally, the research is constructed as followed; Chapter 2 sets the scene for the departure and the development of this study by providing a narrative literature review and forging a line towards the specific research problem. Chapter 3 outlines the theoretical basis for the 5 Capability Framework in relation to peacebuilding activities that have been derived from the AMISOM Concept of Operations (CONOPS) strategy for 2018-2021. Chapter 4 discusses the methodological approach that guides the empirical analysis and the implications social
research methods have had on the outcome of this study. Chapter 5 is devoted to outlining the empirical findings by answering the first research question, while Chapter 6 will critically examine the result by applying theory in order to provide the bulk of the answer to the second research question. Extending on this, the research concludes with Chapter 7 by reconnecting to the larger research debate while simultaneously summarising our findings. Reflecting upon the value of the theoretical framework, the research will synthesise the second research question by determining the overall peacebuilding capacity of the AMISOM KDF. Lastly, a suggestion on the possible roadmap for future research in the area is provided.
The next chapter will set the point of the departure with the review of relevant literature(s).
9 2. LITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter starts with a synopsis of the peacekeeping and counterinsurgency debate
followed by a detailed exploration of the literatures to showcase the academic research gap in a summary format. This will be strengthened by a shorter review of empirical research of the AMISOM / KDF with a concluding remark on the further research contribution.
2.1 SYNOPSIS OF THE PEACEKEEPING & COUNTERINSURGENCY DEBATE With respect to the abductive approach that was considered in this research, there are reasons to review both the peacekeeping (PK) and counterinsurgency (COIN) debate as the findings indicated interdisciplinary features in terms of the perceived rationale behind; and
engagement by; the AMISOM KDF in peacebuilding. Likewise, the AMSIOM mission deviates from standard UN peacekeeping missions and was not perceived as being
specifically adherent to just one of the academic fields, a factor that tends to distort scholars on the subject when staying analytical towards one field of literature. In fact, and just recently, scholars have demonstrated that there are more similarities between peacekeeping and counterinsurgency than often recognised (Friis, 2010; Charbonneau, 2017; Andersen, 2018; Karlsrud, 2019; Belloni & Costantini, 2019), although correlations were drawn much earlier (Kitson, 1971). Broadly, counterinsurgents cannot solely succeed with offensive
operations and must seek to apply non-kinetic measures
3, meanwhile, the peacekeeper often is forced to apply ‘robust’ means to implement a mandate. Specifically, both communities share a focus on civilian rather than military solutions, integrated and coherent approaches (social, political and economic) to support development efforts and focuses on the importance of local ownership and host-nation legitimacy (Friis, 2010:52). Despite that these links have been questioned on a political and strategic level, yet flawed (see e.g. Howard, 2019), we posit that military actors engage and often end up in similar activities on the ground and both academic fields have enmeshed important thinking on such practices.
The two following sub-chapters will track down the two fields literature in separate domains and then identify a combined research void through a summary.
3 Commonly used term in the academic debate of COIN, referring to the targeted application of (other military and non-military) capabilities and means that does not focus on destroying the ‘enemy’ by the use of force, see e.g. Ducheine, Schmitt & Osinga (2014).
10 2.2 THE PEACEKEEPING COMMUNITY
There is a significant discrepancy between the findings of most quantitative studies that state that UN PKOs works, reduce and contain conflict/violence (Sambanis, 2008; Fortna &
Howard, 2008; Hultman, Kathman & Shannon, 2014) and the studies of local, qualitative dimensions that tends to be more critical (Autesserre, 2014a; 2017; Richmond & Pogodda, 2016). With conflict still being the main concern for peacekeeping operations, improvements in terms of the level and intensity of violence continue to be of primary importance (Salvatore
& Ruggeri, 2017:21; Hegre, Hultman & Nygård, 2019). Yet, this focus undermines an important aspect of the evolution of peacekeeping operations. The gradual development of their mandated tasks (figure 1) due to the shifting nature of conflict, have required
peacekeepers to engage in wider responses and more explicitly to work as early
peacebuilders, undertaking ‘catalytic’ tasks that are supposed to generate momentum towards the foundation for longer-term and broader peacebuilding efforts (DPKO-DFS, 2012).
Hazen (2007) and Curran and Woodhouse (2007) were some of the first to build on this growing body of literature, despite that the Department of Peacekeeping Operations and Field Support’s (DPKO-DFS) policy toolkit for peacekeepers to undertake (early) non-military activities did not come into practice until 2012.
Not surprisingly, Hazen concluded in the case of the UN Mission in Sierra Leone
(UNAMSIL) that peacekeepers lacked insight on its responsibilities, how their engagement was supposed to be coordinated and conducted on a local level even though the political space were promising for engagement. As a result, they became an extension of the liberal
peacebuilding project through mentoring and assisting the national government with elections as the measuring ‘benchmark’ for success. Curran and Woodhouse on the other hand, also in the case of UNAMSIL, argued that the peacekeepers had been largely successful in
implementing a series of developmental activities aimed at fostering relations with the local
Figure 1 - Tasks from UN PK Mandates 1948-2016 (Salvatore &
Ruggeri, 2017: 22).
11
populace and setting the stage for longer-term peacebuilding efforts. A public opinion survey taken from all 14 county districts sheds light on this:
[Sierra Leoneans] described how the UN peacekeepers had built roads and bridges, road networks, shelters, health centres, radio stations, schools, mosques, churches, and market structures. They gave out free medical care and medicine, free school supplies, food, and clothing. They built quality water wells, rehabilitated prisons, carried out night patrols, and built town clocks… […] 79 % said peacekeepers had made efforts to solve local problems (Krasno, 2005).
In retrospection, both papers provided moderate observations on what peacekeepers are nowadays partly responsible for carrying out to generate success, which according to the DPKO-DFS is (i) advancing political objectives and (ii) implementing the foundation for longer-term institution building. Though as the DPKO-DFS highlights on peacekeepers early responsibility, (iii) providing an umbrella to allow other peacebuilding actors to function is an equally important task. Indeed, As Richmond (2016:181) suggests, peacekeepers ability to carry out peace dividend and open space for others is found in the mutual negotiation of improvements with the local population based on the everyday life disrupted by conflict. For example, a local NGO in the context of the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) stressed that the most critical factor is the ability of peacekeepers to work in partnership with local actors experiencing conflict, including women, youths, traditional leaders and local governments so that progress is not halted when the mandate ends (Carvalho, 2011:53).
Equally, Autesserre (2014b:105-108) provides an extensive view on why ownership is critical for the sustainability of projects and the gradual phase-out of the UN Stabilisation Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUSCO). Moreover, in one of her later works (2017), building on over 700 qualitative interviews, she unpacks conditions where
international actors have managed to support the successful implementation of ‘bottom-up’
peace efforts. Furthermore, Smidt (2017) looks at how peacekeepers in the UN Operation in Côte d’Ivoire (UNOCI) impacted the decrease of communal violence by facilitating
community-based intergroup dialogue activities. Whereas Mvukiyehe and Samii (2017) explore how peacekeepers in the UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) influenced rural voters’
turnout and the decrease of election-related violence through education and the establishment of an early warning system together with local communities. More generally, peacekeepers may also provide essential assistance in mine-clearing of early peacebuilding processes (Hofmann & Rapillard, 2017:419) by opening access to resources and social services,
including everyday practices and infrastructure like land, water, transport routes, schools, and
health clinics (Shimoyachi-Yuzawa, 2013:181).
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The reconceptualisation of peacekeeping to span across a wider continuum of engagement, in shared domains with other actors, have also led authors to discuss their relationship with NGOs in conflict-affected societies (Dorussen & De Vooght, 2018). Yet, recent fieldwork tells that peacekeeping units tend to interact with civilians in different ways and can thus undermine a coherent mission strategy and the continuity of programming, as seen in the case of UNMISS (Spink, 2017). Krause (2019) provides, therefore, interesting arguments when she analyses how local actors create coherence by shaping the conflict in such ways that national and international actors can support the provisions of stability. Because it is often the case that ‘third-parties’ conceptions of peace, conflict, peacekeeping and peacebuilding contrast to those of the host populations resulting in little produced value for their own socio- historical and cultural autonomy (Autesserre, 2014b; Müller & Bashar, 2017). In addition, the imposition of external priorities and solutions may be even more harmful. Consequently, peacekeepers become unpopular and occasionally end up in conflict with local populations or armed groups who both contest and reject programmes (Autesserre, 2014b).
Local intermediaries who can connect the peacekeepers with communities has nowadays become one of the institutionalised practices to counter inter-social gaps and frictions, by e.g.
offering translation services, informing communities about the mandate, its presence and collecting intelligence about conflict dynamics informing the operations (Rupesinghe, 2016a:3).
Credibility and legitimacy are thus important factors for successful local engagement and the vice versa. Equally, without effective engagement, a peacekeeping operation is likely to struggle to understand the effects of its operations on the civilian population and as well how civilians perceive these actions (Spink, 2017:1). The success of peacekeepers in establishing strong community relations depends also on their personal attributes such as being pragmatic and trustworthy (Krishnasamy, 2015:13). In contrast, the peacekeeping literature suggests that negative interactions with local populations, such as excessive use of force or sexual
exploitation have strong effects on how peacekeepers are perceived and on the subsequent
level of cooperation (Gordon & Young, 2017:68). Within this, Whalan (2017) for example,
sheds light on how the theory of legitimacy can help determine peacekeepers engagement
with local actors. Sabrow (2017) has another take on this and argues that different units of
military actors within peacekeeping operations applies to different forms of legitimacy.
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For example, Makdisi and Prashad (2016), in the case of Lebanon, finds that while the
peacekeepers' development efforts were welcomed by the locals, they strongly condemned the perceived political objectives which included the support to rival authorities.
Indeed, as Karlsrud (2018) discovers, peacekeepers often find themselves in a juxtaposition as the support to peace and long-term stability includes engagement with rebel groups,
marginalised populations and elites associated with the central authority. For example, key causes of civilian targeting by armed groups in Mali was the retaliation for suspected
collusion with foreign forces in development efforts. Whereas in the United Nations / African Union Hybrid Mission in Darfur (UNAMID), peacekeepers were perceived by the
government as meddling too much with sovereign affairs and thus limited its capacity for local engagement after areas had been ‘recovered’ (Rupesinghe, 2016b). This is a puzzling quest for peacekeepers as they occasionally perform as an alternative to the state in terms of governance, for good and bad reasons, to lead and manage the peacebuilding process
(Carvalho, 2011:8), including the compensation of security void in the lack of control of central authorities (Ruggeri, Dorussen & Gizelis, 2017). While early peacebuilding initiatives, including the protection of civilians helps to reinforce the political objectives, they should not be an end in itself. Recent key findings in the case MONUSCO and MINUSMA extends this view, as one of the bigger issues for peacekeeping effectiveness was the lack of a social contract between the government and its population to work alongside the military in the stabilisation phase. Not only does this create space and indeed often filled by political aggressors, but it poses also difficult questions about ‘dependency’ in terms of the exit strategy and the gradual handover of major responsibilities to the host state (SIPRI, 2019).
Finally, UN PKOs have during the last decade been deployed to protect civilians in increasingly unstable and asymmetric conflicts with no reliable peace agreement in place.
Adapting to these evolving dynamics, have led to a doctrinal gap between the guiding UN PK principles (impartiality, consent and limited use of force) and what the UN PK is mandated to do by the UNSC on the ground (Karlsrud, 2017). It was thus a defining moment when
MONUSCO and later MINUSMA and UNMISS was deployed to not only neutralise and deter political aggressors but also to ‘use all necessary means’ to extend state-authority and actively prevent the return of armed elements in recovered areas (Karlsrud, 2017;
Longobardo, 2019). Combined with the use of force, both missions became active parties to
the conflict, which have sparked a debate whether PKO is an appropriate response to
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emergent threats (Sebastian, 2015; UNGA, 2017; Longobardo, 2019). In turn, lessons and observations from these missions directly translate to the COIN community (Kilcullen, 2010:107) and indeed, coincides more often with the diction of ‘counterinsurgency’ (Garcia, 2017; Karlsrud, 2017; 2019). As such, we hereon turn to the counterinsurgency debate to broaden our views between the aspect of fighting insurgents and delivering development initiatives, a central feature of its debate.
2.3 THE COUNTERINSURGENCY COMMUNITY
Common to the wider accounts of both classical and contemporary Counterinsurgency
(COIN), is the notion that kinetic measures alone will not create space for legitimacy, support and control since insurgency contestation works within the socio-economic and political realm of the conflict-affected society (Zambernardi, 2010). To succeed in this space of
contestation, intervening forces must win the ‘hearts and minds’ of the local population which refers to the way of conducting operations that will strengthen the perception of legitimacy for the host-government and its international support (Gilmore, 2011:23). As Egnell (2010:289) states and supported by the US COIN Field Manual (US FM 3-24, 2014), hearts and minds or consent winning tactics, should primarily be viewed to achieve military objectives rather than to achieve active long-term development aims. Likewise, when peacebuilding initiatives are applied through a COIN lens, they serve as a pacification technique to ensure popular host- acquiescence (Turner, 2015).
One of these assumptions builds on the ‘Clear, Hold and Build’ theory, mostly reliant upon an enemy-centric approach where there is a larger focus on defeating the enemy first and
subsequently catalysing reconstruction efforts (Ucko, 2013). Though, how successful this theory holds for COIN practices is questionable. For example, Groenewald (2016:33)
highlights the difficultness for provincial reconstruction teams in Afghanistan to engage with local leaders in the same village that became the victim of bombings. Ucko (2013:530) goes further on by saying that in the case of Iraq and Afghanistan, the ‘Clear, Hold and Build’
notion, could easily impose new orders on local systems, with the belief that local settings
were ‘ungoverned’, absent of institutions and non-distributive of power relations which were
contrary to the actual setting and in turn created a perceived re-imposition of predatory state
structures.
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Against this backdrop, Wilder concluded after conducting more than 400 interviews in Afghanistan trying to understand the injection of development assistance in the US counterinsurgency strategy:
“While many projects have clearly had important development benefits, we have found little evidence that aid projects are winning hearts and minds, reducing conflict and violence, or having other significant counterinsurgency benefits. In fact, our research shows just the opposite […] Afghan perceptions of aid actors are overwhelmingly negative. And instead of contributing to stability, in many cases aid is contributing to conflict and instability” (Wilder, 2009).
